Or as Dennis Miller said, “Joe Biden’s not really Catholic—it’s just that Obama puts out his cigarettes on Joe’s forehead !

Ha, ha, ha.

Truth is, it really reaffirms just how secular Britain has become.
It’s a little pathetic that the broadcaster is allegedly Catholic yet clueless that it was Ash Wednesday, but even still, Anglicans celebrate Ash Wednesday, so you’d think there would be a few people walking around London with ashes on their forehead.

But I bet the Brits have the Islamic religious days of observance memorized !

Posted by: IAmTheWalrus at February 19, 2010 at 2:01 am

How does one with the brain acumen of a flea get to a position such as that? I am not sure if that is a position worth aspiring to though. It just goes to show that people of that ilk really thumb their noses at people of faith. Catholic, really? Doubt it. It is funny though when people who disdain religion use it when they need it. Someone should have asked her to recite it. She would not have a clue is my bet.

Posted by: Rick at February 19, 2010 at 11:53 am

I, too, was confused by the ashes my first year in US, and I was 31 and atheist.

Still am (an atheist), and can care less about ashes, or mass, or burqah, or tzitzit or any other religious rituals and garments. I also don’t find it outrageous that a news reporter (or whoever she was) have mistaken the ash sign for a bruise (I think Biden needs one). I think all signs of excessive religiosity are slightly suspicious (of their bearer’s sincerity) and more than a little ridiculous.

Why not wear a hairshirt and chains as sing of repentance? Or even better, engage in self-flagellation till blood shows, publicly, like certain barbarian Islamic sect?

I think Joe Biden’s head injury is revealed thru brain damage, rather than any superficial abrasion such as a bruise.

Tatyana, I believe you’re conflating your feelings about the religion with the fact that the reporter should absolutely should know the ritual, and absolutely be conscious about the holy day.

The following is not an exact analogy; but let’s say there is an American broadcaster commenting on live footage of some people playing a sport in a local park during the 4th of July. The broadcaster is unable to identify that people are playing baseball as opposed to tennis or soccer, and then after being informed the people are playing a sport called “baseball,” the broadcaster announces, “I guess I should have recognized they’re playing baseball, after all, I’ve been playing the game my whole life and I’ve been playing in a weekend baseball league for the past 15 years !”
Understandably, the viewing audience would probably react by thinking, “What a total moron.”

But the fact that you, Tatyana, or any other member of the viewing audience does not care for the sport of baseball is irrelevant.
Fact is, that broadcaster asserts he plays baseball regularly yet cannot identify other people playing baseball.
In that given situation, he’s a total moron…just like the self-identifying Catholic Sky News broadcaster who cannot identify another practicing Catholic on one of the holiest days (Ash Wednesday) of the calendar.

Posted by: IAmTheWalrus at February 19, 2010 at 2:21 pm

Walrus, “practicing” is the key word here.
She might be a catholic of a slightly more moderate bend than American Catholics usually are – of a kind that generally believe in religious tenets but not devote their time to slavish following of canon.

In any case, I think it’s up to other “baseball league aficionados” to criticize her, not to innocent bystanders.

No matter how moderate a bend she may have been, she still should know what that was.

Posted by: Rick at February 19, 2010 at 7:01 pm

Tatyana, Ash Wednesday is not an obscure event on the Catholic calendar. It commences the Lenten season, which culminates in the holiest day of the calendar—Easter Sunday.
And as I previously mentioned, Ash Wednesday is also a holy day observed by the Anglicans, which happens to be the most prevalent denomination of Christianity in England.

Even if someone is secular or just practices another denomination of Christianity or even is of a religion, most everyone knows that 12 o’clock midnite on Ash Wednesday marks the end of Mardi Gras.

Every Catholic knows what it is.
Well…except for the tv broadcaster at Sky News.

Posted by: IAmTheWalrus at February 20, 2010 at 3:33 am

Dear Father,

Peace and Love!

I’m a Capuchin monk of the Holy House of Loreto in Marche in the centre of Italy.